Miss the Stars
by bluestargem
Summary: And there, sitting on the outskirts of London outside a shabby grey building, he knows that they’re no longer written in the stars, that they’ve missed their chance. Their destinies, as much as he wishes for them to be, are no longer intertwined.


_Written for JacksonFrost's Failed Relationships Challenge over at HPFC – Seamus/Lavender._

_Disclaimer: Harry Potter and everything related to Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. _

_Gah, rushed to finish this so I'm sorry for the mediocre quality. Feel free to tell me any mistakes you see._

* * *

**Miss the Stars**

The slim slip of parchment is delivered to him that grey morning by a snow-white owl as he is at the sink washing the dishes. When he opens it, the first things he sees are the scrolling letters flamboyantly announcing their message to him in large, flashing ink:

_You are invited to..._

_Lavender Brown's and Terry Boot's Wedding!_

The parchment shakes in his suddenly sweaty hands and crumples into a messy, smeared ball discarded over his shoulder. In a numb daze, he stares at the snowy owl watching him sharply with amber eyes. Vaguely, he strokes its feathers. She'd always loved white owls, he remembers, and she'd always sigh wistfully whenever she glimpsed Harry's owl flying to him at Owl Post every morning. He'd been frustrated at never having enough money to buy a snowy owl for her birthday. Maybe he'd get it as a wedding present, he thinks, then laughs hollowly at the thought. She's already got one, it's standing in front of him right now, and most likely the successful, rich Terry Boot bought it for her. Not him, sandy-haired, freckled, lanky Seamus Finnigan who lives in the modest, three-storey apartment building on the shabby outskirts of town.

It had never been him.

* * *

_**First Year**_

She'd been a skinny Muggleborn girl of eleven with drooping brown pigtails and large dark blue eyes that, for her first few school days, looked as if they were widened in perpetual fright. He didn't help with her fear – he and Dean had been quick friends and in their confidence, had teased the girls mercilessly in all their eleven-year-old glory. He remembers stealing her fluffy pink pencil case and the glittery pink pens inside them – _ew, you're so pink, Lav-Lav, Lav for lavatory – shouldn't you be brown instead of pink, Brown?_

On a stormy Thursday, they'd seen her sprinting across the grounds to Herbology as he and Dean made their own slow way to the greenhouses under a shared umbrella. The rain had been pouring down in curtains, completely disregarding her makeshift umbrella in the form of a textbook and thoroughly soaking her. He'd watched as the mud spattered all over her school robes as she half-waded through it and as she frowned, constantly pushing her damp hair out of her eyes. As she peeled back a particularly bothersome strand from her face, a rowdy group of senior students accidentally knocked her to the ground in a large puddle of mud and continued to move on, oblivious to the brown-haired girl who still sat there, hugging her wet book to her chest.

He hadn't been able to tell if the wetness on her cheeks were tears or rain, but he could see her biting her lip as if to hold back sobs, and the slight shaking of her shoulders as the mud seeped through her black robes. And there, on a cold, irritable Thursday, he felt something like compassion, something like _the need to help_ flutter in his stomach for one Lavender Brown.

Ignoring Dean's surprised cry, he splashed his way towards her shaking form and moved the umbrella so that it covered both of them. Without a word, he offered his hand. She'd stared at him, mouth open in surprise.

"Well, I know I'm good-looking, but that doesn't mean you have to stare at me all day," he had said gruffly, averting his eyes with a poorly concealed embarrassment. Then her blue eyes had brightened and she'd giggled and sprung up, taking his hand.

At Herbology, he left Dean with Neville so he could accompany her to the bathrooms to wipe away the mud. And at lunch that day, she waved him over to sit next to her.

He'd smiled and accepted.

Yes, surprisingly it was Seamus Finnigan, the boy who loved to tease girls like Lavender Brown, who became her first friend on a rainy day just before a late Herbology lesson. Not even Parvati had been her friend then- no, it had been Seamus Finnigan who had been her first friend in the Wizarding World.

But everyone, including Lavender herself, has forgotten that by now.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Second Year**_

They're sitting in the Common Room, quiet as the news that Hogwarts that will be closing sinks into their still-innocent minds. The room is heavy with unspoken worry and the faces of each Gryffindor hold the same expression of fear, of unasked questions – _how could the invincible _Hogwarts_ be closing?_

He's worried too, not for himself, but because his two closest friends are both Muggle-born and _they_ – whoever _they_ are- could strike anytime and take away his two best friends in the world. He watches silently as Dean makes his way to the dormitories without saying goodnight and bites his lip as Neville hunches in a corner as if trying to shield himself from whatever menace is stalking its way through the school. And then he turns to Lavender, who is sitting by the window with her arms wrapped around her knees, ignoring Parvati's attempts at comfort.

The news is still thrumming meaninglessly through his head, round and round. _An unspeakable danger is lurking in the school, targeting Muggle-borns._ _You_ _are not safe here_. Vaguely, he sees Parvati leave Lavender with a falsely cheerful goodnight and Neville unfold himself to scuttle up to the dormitories.

At last, it's only him and her. He's still watching her, feeling concern, panic and something undefinable swirl through his brain. She's oblivious, gazing out the window, at the stars above.

"I don't want to leave Hogwarts," she whispers suddenly.

His head jerks up. The vulnerability in her voice is almost frightening – she's always so carefree, filled with sunny laughter and this cracked whisper and sombre eyes are so different to her usual self that all he wants to do all of a sudden is to wrap his arms around her and whisper comfortingly in her ear. Noiselessly, he makes his way to her chair.

"My mum's a fortune teller, you know," she says then. He freezes at her abrupt change of subject.

"She says she can read everyone's future through the stars. And whenever I'm upset, she would always be there to tell me to believe in the stars, believe in myself. Believe in my destiny.

"She always said that one day, I would be great. She said that she'd read my future and one day, I would find out that I was special. And to believe in this."

He stares at her. He doesn't believe in stars and such nonsense, but now, as he gazes at her, he wonders if he should.

"Do you know what it's like to have strange things happen around you without knowing why? And to see others blamed for it when you know it was you? But you're too afraid to say anything?" Her blue eyes are over-bright now, the stars reflecting on their shimmering surface.

"And then this strange man comes to your house one day and says you're a witch and that there's a world out there where there are people just like you – magical and different and _special. _And you're about to join them."

"That day I was about to leave for Hogwarts, she told me to remember the stars. And remember whenever I was upset or crying, to remember her and the stars and my destiny and take comfort in that."

Even as he listens, Seamus can hear the love in her voice for her mother and can imagine the utter belief in a young, brown-haired girl's eyes readying herself to leave everything she knew and venture into the unknown.

Her lips tremble as she turns from the window to look at him. "You – none of you – know what it's like to not belong to the world you were born into, and then to be pulled into another world you _should _belong to but don't. You don't know what it's like to straddle two totally different worlds and try and fit into both of them when you fit into noneof them. You don't know. And now _this_ happens."

She looks away, hands clutching the windowsill as if that would let her stay, anchor her to Hogwarts.

"I won't leave Hogwarts," she decides suddenly. Her mouth is set in a line of grim determination as she straightens. Eyes flashing, she turns to him and the words tumble out of her mouth in a jumbled mess of desperation. "I'll get everyone to sign a petition saying they don't want to leave Hogwarts and we'll all go on strike and I'll go straight to Dumbledore's office and hand it to _him _directly and he'll _have _to – he'll _have _to…"

But he's staring at her in silent compassion, mutual understanding clear in his eyes and she fades away at his unspoken words – _it's no use_. Her shoulders slump in defeat as she gazes dismally at her lap.

"What will I do when it closes?" she whispers and the tears are rolling down her cheeks now, fast and furious.

Moving forwards, he wraps his arms around her and rests his cheek on her hair, listening to her muffled sobs as he gazes out the window and into the night.

"Believe in the stars," he answers softly. _It's all we can do._

_**

* * *

**_

_**Third Year**_

When she's back from the holidays, she's had her brown hair curled and has found strange things called mascara and eye shadow and lipstick.

They're fast moving into different worlds – worlds which do not accommodate innocent boy-girl friendships. He hears Lavender giggling about that hot sixth year from Hufflepuff with Parvati and Dean noticing that Turpin girl from Ravenclaw. He, too, starts to notice things – how Lavender seems so much curvier, how her cheekbones seem more pronounced, how her face seems so constantly covered with _paint _which highlights her wide blue eyes and somehow makes her lips look so much more…enticing. It's undeniable then. He has a crush on his best friend.

One lazy afternoon they're doing their Divination homework together out in the grounds. Seamus is starting to regret ever choosing such a stupid subject – all the star predictions he's come up with so far are flowery and pretentious and absolutely ridiculous. But Lavender and Parvati are stoic followers of Professor Trelawney now so he doesn't say anything as he yawns and scrawls another half-hearted prediction on his star chart.

"Ooh!!" Parvati suddenly squeals (Seamus notices that they both seem to be doing a lot of that these days). "Oh, Lavender, who could that _be_?"

Lavender merely shakes her head as she stares down at her chart with a wondering look in her eyes. "He's got to be in our grade, right? So…"

"What?" Seamus asks.

Parvati turns to them, eyes bright. "According to the stars," she whispers in a hilarious imitation of Trelawney's voice, "Lavender is going to meet a tall, blue-eyed man and find her soulmate in him. See here? That's where their _destinies _converge. And it's tangled for the rest of her life."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "Yeah? You can actually make some _sense _out of these stupid stars and planets?"

The two girls glare at him indignantly before turning back to whisper excitedly to each other, pointing eagerly to their charts and wondering who the "tall, blue-eyed man" could be. Names like "Ron" and "Justin" and "Terry" come up amid a flurry of girlish giggles.

Dean rolls his eyes at him and goes back to puzzling over his chart, something they do routinely whenever the girls are squealing over their Divination homework. But this time, Seamus doesn't return the gesture. He merely stares down at the prediction that the stars have just made for _him_ – _one day, you will find comfort in one girl under the name of a flower and the hair of chocolate._

He looks back up at Lavender and her brown curls and thinks of his own light blue eyes and his lips curl upwards as he thinks that Divination might not be such a stupid subject after all.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Fourth Year**_

"Just ask her, mate," Dean finally says exasperatedly as Seamus, for the umpteenth time, frets about his non-existent dance partner.

His eyes grow wide, needing no explanation for who the "her" is.

"What if she refuses though? Or if something happens and it ruins our friendship? I can't let that happen Dean, I'd rather be her friend than be on some awkward- "

"And you call yourself a Gryffindor," Dean snorts. "Just ask her – the sooner you ask the faster you'll pull yourself out of this lovesick phase. Frankly, it's sickening me."

He mock gags and Seamus retaliates with a rude finger gesture. But that night, he thinks over Dean's words and resolves to ask her tomorrow – the sooner he finds out whether she feels the same or not, the better.

* * *

She's garbed in soft lavender dress robes (typical, he thinks fondly), waiting at the entrance for him, her long curls plaited and her slender wrists clinking with delicate charm bracelets. There's nothing stopping him from blurting out a clumsy compliment to which she returns demurely and they enter arm-in-arm, a juxtaposition of clumsiness and grace.

For the first half of the Ball, he sits awkwardly in his seat, drinking punch and Butterbeer in an attempt to create the illusion that he's entirely at ease and not fidgeting with nerves and love for his best friend at all. Surprisingly, Lavender merely sits beside him, chatting away, giggling and pointing at Parvati dancing with Harry and discussing the teachers and their dancing skills. Then – he doesn't know how – he's whisked onto the dance floor and they're twirling and laughing like there's no tomorrow and after three consecutive dances, they're gasping for breath as they stumble tiredly off the floor.

Wordlessly, he leads her outside. Leaning against the wall, he breathes in the night air and feels a refreshing breeze cool his hot cheeks, but the punch and dancing and twirling has gotten to his brain – he turns to speak to her, but then falters, as he sees her tilted image - flushed cheeks, flowing brown hair, bright eyes gazing up at the starry night sky. And his eyes fall to her lips – lush and red – and _she's beautiful_ flits through his brain before he moves forward, and without warning, he kisses her, turning her head with his large hands, pushing her against the wall, tasting her, feeling her, _breathing _her in and she's so sweet and he's intoxicated and then _she's kissing him back _and they're falling, a tangled mess of limbs and mouths and hands everywhere, falling to the grass. He whispers her name over and over and over again and she's breathing his in his mouth, a breathy stream of passion and longing and _love_, he thinks. Then she moves away and his eyes flutter open to see her silhouetted against the starry night looking down at him with burning eyes and he feels that this would be the best night of his life. As they lean towards each other again, he closes his eyes and the stars sear against his eyelids, a web of orange and red and yellow.

_We're written in the stars, Lav, we're destined for each other._

In his stupefied state, he doesn't wonder why she doesn't answer back.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Fifth Year**_

The beginning of fifth year is perhaps the worst time of his life. He's not on speaking terms with any of his dorm mates except Dean, and even _he _seems colder than usual. And what's more, he and Lavender's separation in the summer holidays still stings hard. Sometimes he thinks that they're more distant than best friends should be because after all, hadn't they promised each other that everything would be the same after this break-up? But he knows he still loves her, and wishes that she still does too _(sometimes he wonders if she ever did)_ and looks back at those long summer afternoons on the lake with his arms around her and her head on his chest with a tang of longing and regret. But when she's still standing beside him, nodding and saying _I don't believe Harry either_ he thinks that maybe she still might. He hopes. He wishes. And irreversibly, irrevocably, he's widening the gap between them with his awkward glances and stumbling words and despite how strong his wish is that he's imagining it, it doesn't ever go away.

But the end of fifth year is the worst, he decides on their train ride home. He and Dean are playing chess when the fatal question pops up.

"Do you know if Ron Weasley's ever dated a girl before?" she asks them. Beside her, Parvati giggles, "Oh Merlin, you really _are _serious!"

"Not that I know of, no. Why?" Dean asks.

Seamus stays quiet, feeling a sense of foreboding sink his heart – he hopes sincerely that he's wrong, but judging by Lavender's pink cheeks and Parvati's giggles, he knows he's right. When Lavender says coyly, "Well, that's good then. It's nice to be someone's first once in a while," he bites down on his lip to avoid yelling a "WHAT?!"

It plagues him for the rest of the ride and when the train pulls up at Kings Cross, he realises that if he won't ask now, he won't be able to at all. Just as they disembark, he grabs her arm and stops her.

"You're going to ask Ron out?" he asks, his voice coming out colder than he intentioned.

"I don't know. I'm interested," she answers with a giggle, twirling a brown strand with a finger. "Why are _you_ interested?"

He knows then that the increasing gap between them isn't a figment of his imagination after all. That tone and that cocked brow clearly states _how is it your business _and he feels something hard sink in his stomach.

"I just think it's stupid that you could be giggling about something as trivial as _crushes _when there's a war about to happen," he answers back harshly. Too harshly.

Her eyes harden.

"I find that extremely hypocritical, Seamus," she snaps, jerking her arm out of his. "Seeing as how _you _didn't believe Harry until what? Three months ago?"

He opens his mouth to say that _she _hadn't believed Harry until three months ago either but she cuts him off.

"Don't judge me Seamus. I _know _there's a war going on, and I _am _taking it seriously. Don't think you know what I'm thinking and feeling at the moment, because guess what? You _don't_."

The words stab hard at his heart and he opens his mouth again to say something, _anything,_ but she's gone and he's left standing at the station, arm still outstretched, wondering where it all went wrong.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Sixth Year**_

The image of Ron Weasley and his Lavender – _no, not his anymore _– burns in his brain, etched in intricate detail – the way his hands were tangled in her chestnut locks, the way his lips were so firmly attached to hers, the way their bodies were practically smothered against each other - and he feels his fists clench. What is it about Ron's lanky arms and freckled face that she thinks is so _good_?

He jumps when he hears the dormitory door open to reveal the very object of his thoughts. She's standing in all her glory at the door, bundled in colourful scarves and cloaks, her brown curls spilling over her shoulders, her eyes sparkling in that eager way of hers.

"Come to Hogsmeade with me, Seamus," she says breathlessly.

He stares and for a moment, he's frozen – _she's asking _me_ to go to Hogsmeade with _her_? On a _date_? _Me_ and _her_?_

And then she's running across the room, grabbing his arm and pulling at it – _come _on_, Shay, I need to buy a birthday present for Won-Won and you need to help me _– and just like that, his rapidly growing hopes just as rapidly fall, and his hard thumping heart slows and he feels the almost-grin slide off his face as he hears that it's _Won-Won's_ birthday and she doesn't know _what_ to buy for him and it's _tomorrow_ and Seamus is her _bestest_ boy friend so she _desperately_ needs his help.

At the end of the exhausting shopping trip, he feels somewhat accomplished and snickers as he imagines Ron's face the next morning when he receives the MY SWEETHEART necklace he'd helped Lavender pick.

_Just for you Ron_, he thinks sarcastically and, feeling a sudden uplift of spirits, he grins at Lavender's excited chatter beside him. _Perhaps_, he thinks, as Lavender smiles brightly back at him, _perhaps, I still have a chance._

* * *

_**Seventh Year**_

At seventeen, bruised, bleeding and despairing at what Hogwarts has become, he's standing in the Room of Requirement staring at the solid walls where the windows _should_ be and where the moonlight _should_ be pouring through. But the walls are bare and cold, and that heavy, aching fear of where Dean is, where Harry is, if they're alright, and that constant panic that _they won't make it _is rushing through him again, closing up his throat, making it hard to breath.

She comes behind him, paler and sadder than any seventeen-year-old should be, her chestnut curls pulled back into a tired ponytail, dark rings round her wide eyes. He turns and their eyes meet. There are no words, aren't any words to say in such a situation. But there's a mutual understanding that they're all in this together, teenagers stuck in a grown-up war, all hurting together, and losing together. She knows. He understands. She smiles sadly as she sits beside him and puts her head on his shoulder _(like old times, he thinks, his heart thumping painfully)_ and for a moment, just for a moment, as he feels her warm hair touching his neck and her soft breaths tickling his chin, a sense of peace steals softly over him.

They fall asleep that night in that exact position, facing where the stars should be and where the moon should glow, not as friends, nor as lovers, but something so much more.

* * *

It hits him as he duels with a masked Death Eater - there's a war at Hogwarts, a fucking _war_ and his friends, Dean, Harry, Hermione, Neville, and _fuck_, Lavender, are fighting, mere teenagers and any one of them could die at any minute. And then, as he comes to this realisation, his wand hand jerks and the spell misses the Death Eater and instead, richochets off the wall opposite him. All he can see is the red jet of light rushing back towards him, fast and unstoppable.

And then there's an explosion of pain. It's rushing through his veins, roaring in his ears, absolute, consuming _agony _and he thinks he's dying, can _feel_ the spell torture his defenceless body. He's dying, and he hasn't said all he's wanted to say, hasn't told Dean how much of a friend he's become, his best friend who stood by him despite everything, or Harry, how sorry he is for fifth year, for not trusting him, for being so proud of being able to meet him, or Hermione, or Neville, or Parvati, or-or Lavender. His beautiful Lavender, who's proud and strong and unbeatable and can squeal like an airhead for one second and be as serious as his mother for another, his beautiful, beautiful Lavender who he loves. He wants to tell her so much, to see her bright smile again, to see those blue eyes sparkle happily again, to feel her slender hands, but he's dying and there's so much pain and everything's fading and _Lavender, I need to tell you..._

There's a flash of red. The last things he sees are the stars glittering above him in celestial forbiddance.

* * *

The wedding's in two days. He sits on a bench outside his apartment and gazes at the piece of parchment fluttering in his hand, feeling the chilly night air against his skin.

_Believe in the stars…_

And the stars glow softly above him, too far to reach yet so ethereal that he longs to touch them and gather them in his hands and have them glow for him, _only_ for him...

He knows he'll never love another. Seamus Finnigan, the boy who loved at thirteen would never love again. He's the one who'll know her best, both the sunny airhead and dangerous dueller, and love her for it, who's the _only _one who calls her "Lav" and gets away with it, who had been her first friend, her first crush, her first kiss…who he loved and loves and will always love.

And there, sitting on the outskirts of London outside a shabby grey building, he knows that they're no longer written in the stars, that they've missed their chance. Their destinies, as much as he wishes for them to be, are no longer intertwined.

He gazes back at the parchment, pulls out his wand and ignites it, watching the wisps of smoke curl at the edges and drift towards the starry night sky.

Dropping the charred pieces, he returns to his apartment, without a single glance back.

_We were written in the stars, Lavender, and you never knew._

* * *

_**A/N**: I don't ship Seamus/Lavender but I had a lot of fun delving into what could've happened in the books between two minor characters. And then it kind of went into full-blown angst and unrequited love :) Reviews are MUCH appreciated (anonymous reviews ARE allowed) and by default, make me dance. _


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